More Cash tunes have been unearthed

Johnny Cash was a legend in his time and his legendary status is even larger now more than a decade after his death. And by some miracle we’re still getting “new” music from the Man in Black long after he left us.

We owe the miracle that is “Out Among The Stars” to his son, John Carter Cash, who wanted to share these previously unreleased songs — most of them recorded a year after his father recovered from a relapse into pain pill addiction. As the younger Cash writes in the liner notes, you can hear the joy in his father’s voice — “his spirit was soaring.”

Cash himself writes a couple of the songs here. “Call Your Mother” should be a country classic, but it’s “I Came To Believe” that really tells the story of this album. “And I came to believe in a power much higher than I / I came to believe that I needed help to get by.”

Most of the tracks, however, are written by others, but Cash sings them as if they were his. That signature Johnny Cash boom-chick-a-boom rhythm drives “Baby Ride Easy” as he joins his late wife, June Carter Cash, for one of those wonderfully warm Johnny and June tunes. “If I ran the country,” he sings. “I’d be your first lady,” she replies.

Then she returns for the tender “Don’t You Think It’s Come Our Time.” It’s enough to make you wish the entire album featured duets with June.

“I’m Movin’ On” is another example of that Cash rhythm as it propels the song to that place where classic country meets classic rock. Waylon Jennings joins Cash here and together these legendary “outlaws” create a forgotten classic.

The most entertaining track here is “If I Told You Who It Was” as Cash recounts a story of seeing a show at Opryland and meeting his “favorite female country star.” In the song she has some car problems, he helps her out and it ends up with a bit of a tryst, all set against a fantastically catchy chorus that Cash deftly delivers. If you’re wondering “who it was,” just wait until the end of the song for a pretty good clue.

Standing out a bit from the rest is the surprisingly dark “She Used To Love Me A Lot.” It actually sounds like a murder ballad, but really it’s just a darkly beautiful breakup song. A bonus version of the track, produced by Elvis Costello, is interesting as well, but the atmospheric noises don’t quite fit in with the rustic nature of the album.

As far as posthumous albums go, this one is satisfyingly good. It doesn’t feel pieced together but actually sounds as if it was recorded by Cash with this final product in mind.

Lyrics anchor The Hold Steady’s latest

Craig Finn, frontman for The Hold Steady, is one of modern rock’s most talented wordsmiths. His talent not only lies with writing the words, but how he delivers them.

Some of his lyrics just shouldn’t work, but they do. And we crave more. That’s why its nice to have Finn and the gang back with “Teeth Dreams.”

“She’s been wasted / She’s been honest / She’s got a necklace / It looks expensive / I’d like to know where she got it.” It may not sound great when you read it, but listen to Finn deliver those lines in “The Only Thing” and it’s suddenly brilliant.

What’s impressive about Finn’s delivery is how catchy he’s able to make it sound even without much melody to his voice. Take “I Hope This Whole Thing Didn’t Frighten You,” where he manages to find a hook in a wordy “chorus” like, “There was a side of this city I didn’t want you to see / There’s just these guys that I know and we go back pretty deep.”

Yet on other tracks, like “Spinners,” Finn manages to find and keep a nice little melody without losing his lyrical heaviness.

The key is that Finn is telling us a story with each song. His conversational tone is addictive. Yet he puts that addiction to the test with “On With The Business.” It’s the kind of song that will make you either love The Hold Steady or hate it. If you like it, “Conventional wisdom says we should probably cruise.”

While admittedly much of The Hold Steady’s lure is in the lyrics, that doesn’t mean it’s all about Finn. Tad Kubler’s lead guitar leaves a trail of fire across songs like “Spinners” and dances with Finn’s vocals through “Big Cig.”

The guitar is best on display as it leads the glorious slow burn of “Oaks,” which finishes out the album in steely splendor — Kubler’s guitar rising up triumphantly through the smoke of Finn’s common man poetry to become the hope and dreams of which he sings.

Contact Brian Passey at bpassey@thespectrum.com and follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/PasseyBrian or on Twitter and Instagram, @BrianPassey.